My posting on Haiti last week (and the resulting spot on WordPress’s homepage, editorial in The Age, etc. etc.) provided a couple of fun side-effects. As well as the upswing in traffic on this site (thanks for the 12,000 of you who sauntered round for a gander last week), it also linked me in a little more to some of the other blogs and websites out there discussing the ins, outs, ups, downs and general architecture of humanitarian assistance. Some highlights for those interested in getting some more in-depth analysis around some of the issues that make aid work complex, fascinating, engaging, and periodically dysfunctional are linked below.

And finally J. adds his two or three cents on what needs to follow the initial frenzy of digging people out of the rubble.

On a completely different (non-Haiti-related) tack, I stumbled across an article written about a year ago entitled The Archipelago of Fear, a personal and insightful account of the dichotomies of life in Kabul as an expatriate. Long, but full of vivid emotion and tight, evocative prose. Highly recommended.

Edit 25.01.10: For a great overview of some of the more relevant alternatives for how to help Haiti become a better place after reconstruction, check out Paul Currion’s commentary on Reinventing Haiti. NGOs need to start taking some of these more non-traditional approaches to reconstruction and rehabilitation more seriously.

The article I posted on Friday about the constraints faced by the international community on getting aid into Haiti has had to be pulled from my site for a little while. The piece is being picked up by The Age newspaper (one of the larger national papers in Australia) to be run as an editorial tomorrow and they have requested I suspend the post until after the paper is published tomorrow. I’ll have the post back up by 9am Melbourne time Tuesday. Sorry about that. Thanks for all of you who have dropped by to read, leave comments, retweet, etc. etc.- I’ve really appreciated the interest and coverage.

It’s been two and a half days since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, leveling the city and killing what the Red Cross is estimating up to 50,000 people. Hundreds of thousands more are injured or homeless.

Already- and who can blame them?- people are complaining at the slow pace of aid delivery. At the time of writing (Friday night in Australia) there had been reports of angry residents blocking roads with the bodies of earthquake victims in macabre protest (I’m not sure how this is supposed to improve aid delivery).

It isn’t uncommon, in the wake of a disaster, for aid to take a while to reach those who need it. There is always footage of some angry resident complaining that promised aid has not arrived. However in the prevailing culture of Port-au-Prince, dissatisfaction of this kind swiftly leads to violence. This is a problem that needs fixing fast, or there will be a lot of very cross Haitians, who have over the years repeatedly demonstrated a penchant for angry mobs and violent protest.

In addition, slow aid delivery gives the international community in general a bad name. The UN and NGOs get flak in the media. Our donors get suspicious and edgy. We get given less money. (I hear the eyeballs of the cynics out there rolling, but in reality this does mean, for better or for worse, less material assistance reaching people directly impacted by the disaster, which is ultimately what we’re about).

In the case of Haiti, there’s every reason to think that aid delivery is going to be slow, and far slower than appears acceptable in the face of a disaster of this magnitude. It will be easy to point the finger at governments, charities and the UN for not overcoming obstacles in their way and doing what they’re supposed to do best. However, let’s take a moment and look at why aid has been- and will continue to be- slow reaching Haiti’s victims.

Airports– Port-au-Prince has one. It’s small for an international airport. I’ve flown into it, and there’s not much there. I understand it actually has capacity for nine or ten planes at a time. Planes take time to land, to offload, and to take off again. There’s things like refueling, paperwork and clearances to consider. Different types of planes require different types of equipment to offload them, and different amounts of time.

The airport was damaged in the earthquake and is not yet back up to full capacity. Planes need fuel, but there’s very little available in Port-au-Prince, and it’s heavy and expensive to fly in. Airport staff are among the victims, and many will be digging their families out of rubble. The US army is reputed to be stepping in to manage the airport. A strict system to allow planes in and out of the airport will be established, placing an absolute ceiling on the physical volume of aid that can come in. In other words, it doesn’t matter how organized, prepared or resourced you are: there’s only one airport, and it can only process so much cargo a day.

Seaports- The main seaport in Port-au-Prince was damaged in the quake. The access road from the port to the city is ostensibly buckled five feet into the air. Aid ships have already been turned away from the dock. Offloading cargo ships at a modern dock isn’t a matter of pitching sacks over the side- there are 20- and 40-foot steel containers to contend with which must be craned or trucked off decks. If the heavy lifting gear is damaged, you can have all the aid supplies in the world- you can’t offload it. Until the port is functioning again, there will be serious restrictions on how aid can get through.

Roads– As of today the roads into Port-au-Prince from neighbouring provinces were largely accessible. However roads inside Port-au-Prince remained blocked by debris and by people too scared or unable to return home. Some roads are accessible by four-wheel drive. Heavy trucks- those not damaged in the quake- will struggle to get through the debris. There will be a limited number of transport vehicles (and drivers to run them) available, and a limited number of access roads to drive on until they are cleared. So even if supplies make it to key points of entry, distributing them within the city will be a slow process, again limited by available logistical resources.

Neighbours– The Dominican Republic borders Haiti, was unaffected by the earthquake, and has seaports and an international airport. It is already established as an alternative logistics hub for the relief effort. Roads between the two countries aren’t great and there are reputed to be some safety issues in driving them. Again the limitations on (and inflated cost of) transportation vehicles- trucks and helicopters- from the DR to Haiti will be the main limiting factor.

Communications– Landline, cell-phone and internet communications (not to mention power) are all down at the moment in Port-au-Prince, so communicating with different parts of the city to identify access routes, populations, resources and alternative solutions is difficult. Communicating needs to the outside world is also difficult. Problem-solving, especially where multiple stakeholders are involved, such as trucking companies, government bodies or partner NGOs, is complex and frustrating when telecommunications are not functioning.

Staff– Many if not most of the UN and international agency staff- national and expatriate- in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake have been affected. Some have been killed. Many have lost homes, or loved ones, or both. Many will be unable to assist in relief operations. Key roles lie unfilled. The same is true of transportation companies, service providers, and government departments overseeing infrastructure and logistics. New staff are flying in to fill some of these gaps, but they are less familiar with the Haitian context and will not make decisions as smoothly or as quickly as their local counterparts may have.

Solutions– All of this not to say that the operation is hopeless, or nothing can be done. The response community as a whole and as individuals are aware of these challenges, and are tackling them in a myriad of different ways, so that hopefully, over the coming days, solutions will be found. Access roads can be cleared, staff brought up to speed, communication systems replaced and streamlined systems put in place. However the reality is, this will still take time.

During this time, an equal reality is that people will die. Men, women and children injured in the earthquake will not get the treatment they need. Infants forced to drink unclean water because the pipe network has broken will die from dehydration brought about through diarrhoeal disease. Frail or chronically ill people left shocked and exposed without shelter may pass away.

We acknowledge this will happen. But the constraints listed above will not simply go away because we don’t like them. We will address them as quickly and efficiently as possible, and we hope that in doing so, the number of people who die needlessly will be minimalized. We hope that in doing so, we will not make unecessary mistakes that cost the lives of innocents.

Many of these challenges remain outside our direct control, lying either with physical constraints that are effectively absolute, or with levels of state authority we cannot easily manipulate.

Of course it is not acceptable to sit back, throw up our hands, and say, “Oh, there’s nothing we can do to solve this problem. Woe is me!” We must- and are- throwing all our efforts at these problems to solve them.

But in keeping the above in mind, we should be careful not to slam the international community unfairly for the slow delivery of assistance into a highly complex and challenge-wrought environment.

The optimum solution is to have the necessary systems and resources in place before an event like this occurs. Alternative logistics plans, sufficient hardware, expanded port and airport facilities, redundant systems of governance should an event paralyze the existing structure.

As you can see when you write it out, not very realistic.

What is important to bear in mind is that the most valuable resources are the ones already on the ground. Our organization, for example, already had stockpiles of emergency supplies based in different warehouses around the country that could be immediately mobilized, irregardless of airport snaffus. Likewise, over 350 in-country staff to call on to assist without needing to fly them in, many of them already trained and experienced in disaster response. Many other agencies are in a similar position.

Community members are always the first responders and the people who, far outstripping the efforts of the UN and NGOs, save the most lives. They pull loved ones and neighbours from the wreckage, share the limited resources they themselves have with their communities, and are both the first and most effective responders.

By providing the local people themselves with basic first-aid, rescue and survival skills- not to mention encouraging people to have an emergency stockpile- food, candles, bottled water- the effectiveness of this first response can be greatly enhanced. This is undoubtedly the most effective and impactful way forward, and is the way many NGOs, my own included, continue to approach disaster relief in concert with more traditional response mechanisms.

Today all we can really do is hope that the authorities able to make decisions make them wisely, and that those attempting to overcome obstacles find creative insight. And we can pray that the community members themselves who have survived the earthquake and are now supporting others will continue to have the strength and capacity to keep their brothers and sisters in good health and spirits.

When I got out of bed this morning, I hadn’t expected to make the evening news.

It was pure chance that I chose to put on a t-shirt with our organization’s logo on it- one of a slowly growing portfolio of branded clothing I’m slowly accumulating after a series of trips to disaster responses in the field. T-shirts, caps, utility-vests… the staple uniform of good aid-workers the world over.

The text went off in my pocket around 9am. We knew it was going to be bad almost instantly. I think I probably swore when I read it. My phone is hooked up to a global disaster monitoring service which provides near-real-time alerts of earthquakes and tsunamis around the world. This one warned of a 7.0+ magnitude quake just outside Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince. I’ve been to Port-au-Prince, seen how the shanties cling like brittle limpets to the fragile hillsides around the harbour. The shallow depth- just ten kms down- meant that the shaking was going to be severe, the damage extensive.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this site, I’ve been lucky enough that up till now, I haven’t lost any personal friends to the trauma factory that is aid-work. None the less, the more I work in disasters, the more friends I make in risk-prone areas, and the more diverse locations I visit, the more that disaster events like today’s devastating earthquake in Haiti strike home.

Just as the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami struck a chord with television viewers throughout the western hemisphere (not for the decimated population of Aceh, but for views of familiar Thai beaches being washed away), so too when a disaster hits a place I’m familiar with, it makes it feel that much closer to my heart. I’ve referred to my time in Haiti in just the last few days on this website, as a place that’s left a special mark on my memory. Port-au-Prince is a place in my head I can relate to. I know what rush-hour feels like there. I’m familiar with the children in their school uniforms, blue skirts and shorts and white shirts, the girls with little blue bobbins in their wiry hair. I remember the sight of UN peacekeepers patrolling the roadways in the back of open pickup trucks, the dreadful pockmarked roads, and the flimsy shanties that crawl like acne up the sheer mountainsides that hem the city in.

Three friends of mine, two Canadian and an Australian from my office here in Melbourne, flew into Haiti this weekend to carry out a workshop with our organization. It took us several hours this morning before we could confirm they were alive and unhurt, thankfully based out of the north-eastern town of Hinche some hours from the epicentre. They are now giving us regular updates of their experience as they try and support our local office in Port-au-Prince with scale-up and emergency operations.

Colleagues I met and whose company I enjoyed during my visit are tonight searching among the debris for loved ones. While I’m relieved that the initial reports indicate none of our staff have lost their lives, I pray for them as many of them still struggle to discover the fate of their family members. These are men and women I know by name.

It’s been a busy day, one of emotional ups and downs. Concern at the initial news of the earthquake. Uncertainty at the fate of people I care about. Relief at discovering their safety. Sadness at the details of the earthquake that continue to pour in. Grief on behalf of colleagues many thousands of miles away. I’ve done a couple of stressful interviews for radio and TV, and enjoyed the support and comradery of my proficient and professional team-mates as we’ve gathered the information and made the decisions necessary to do our jobs in support of the field operations.

On the one hand, I thrive professionally off engaging with disaster response work. It’s the raison d’etre for my profession. On the other, when events like the Haiti Earthquake affect people you know and care about, it ceases to be a distant operation, a detatched reality, or some sad event that takes place on televisions and computer screens.

Tomorrow we’ll learn more of what’s happened out in Haiti. I begin my day early enough to prep for a 6am radio interview, and from there I’ll be in the office feeding off the time-window that overlaps with our team in Port-au-Prince so that we can begin pulling together resources and providing support which will help them do their job in assisting people affected by the disaster. For many of our team on the ground, they themselves will be disaster-affected, adding an additional complexity to their ability to respond. And however personally I may take an event like this, I know it’s nothing compared to what it is like when your own city, your own home and your own family are struck.

Thoughts and prayers tonight rest with the tens of thousands of people whose lives have been violently and dramatically altered today at the whim of our fragile planet.

All photos taken April 2007 on Ile de la Gonave off the coast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

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